The integration of digital-camera technology with wireless hand-held electronic devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) is now common place. A user of a camera phone, for example, can now snap digital images directly from the device and the images are then stored in the device on internal flash memory.
Wireless camera devices also allow users to manipulate the images on the device. For example, digital cameras, PDAs and camera phones allow users to send images to other network connected devices, attach images to email and MMS messages, store images in specific locations on the device or on the network, create and send post cards with images, order prints, and so on. Another popular image handling feature is to allow the user to upload pictures from phone directly to an online photosharing site. Using a web browser on a PC, or even a browser on the phone, the user can then visit the photosharing website to edit their pictures, create albums that can be viewed as slideshows by visitors, and/or create email postcards. Advanced functions include turning the wireless device into a mobile photo album that allows the user to organize, view, and send favorite photos to friends by downloading pictures from photosharing site to the wireless device.
Although there are many options available today for enabling a user to manipulate images on a hand-held wireless device, many users don't take advantage of these capabilities because the user interfaces for these devices make the tasks too difficult. For instance, due to a cell phone's small screen and numeric keypad instead of a keyboard, scrolling through a list of images for selection and then entering one or more email addresses just to send an email with an attached image can be extremely tedious and time consuming.
As the number of management functions or actions that the user would like to perform grows, so does the time involved and complexity of using the device. For example, one can imagine the number of button presses involved with selecting a group of images, uploading the images to a particular website, and then ordering prints for the images from the website, all from a camera phone. This user interface problem on small portable devices is applicable not only to the management of image files, but also to the management of any other type of electronic file.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method that enables users to take advantage of the data handling capabilities of hand-held imaging devices that minimizes the interaction between the user and the device itself. The present invention addresses such a need.